Snack foods, such as baked goods like cookies, crackers, cereals, and snack chips, are often packaged in a flexible bag or liner which is in turn packaged in a carton or paperboard box. Typically, the outer box is shaped as a rectangle or a rectangular parallelepiped. The parallelepiped box has a relatively narrow width allowing the package to be easily held in one hand and providing a large front and back panel for product identification. However, the width of the opening on top of the box is also relatively narrow due to the narrow width of the box and thus a consumer cannot easily insert a hand or other object to extract the snack food. Usually the box has to be deformed at the top of the box by the hand which is inserted into the package to allow the products to be removed from the package by hand. Once the hand is removed, the box returns to its initial shape. If the box is permanently deformed by the user to an extent such that a pressure was applied to force the box to stay open in a wider configuration, then it can be difficult to reclose the box.
Alternatively, a box utilizing a widened top shape for easy access to the packaged goods stored therein can also be found. The front and back panels of the box can contain folding score lines which fold the front and back panels outward to allow the top of the package to form an enlarged shape for easier access to the packaged goods. However, the box does not stay open during a prolonged amount of time. Additionally, the top flaps of the carton or box do not conveniently fold and remain out of the way when the top opening is expanded into an enlarged shape which can get in the way of a user trying to insert their hand or other object into the carton to extract the packaged good. One method of keeping the flaps out of the way has been to intentionally remove them by ripping or tearing them off; however, then the top opening of the box cannot be reclosed. Additionally, the method of initially opening a carton at the top, such as a perforation, flip-top, etc., can often eliminate the reclose properties of the top flaps upon the initial opening of the box via the top flaps.